you forgot to add the following:
- Rios becoming #1,
- the second best player in the era doing meth and going AWOL during the peak years of the best player of the era.

lol..wow, what would you do if youtube and wikipedia did not exist? its a good thing its here so you can read about tennis since you never played it nor watched from that era. its great to hear opinions coming from clueless posters that only know rios existed from wikipedia and youtube videos.

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"I may come across as a Pete-hater, but I'm not. I have utmost respect for his abilities" Fed_Rulz 2011

Also, there has been discussion about the worst #1 in history, which included Rios, Kafelnikov, Moya, Rafter... all fall in the 90s.

the worst #1?? that is just silly. each player earned it. you show little respect for the game and its history, but since you are new to tennis its not surprising. all of those guys were terrific players. most consider rios best never to win a major not the worst #1. guess you don't realize how difficult it is to attain #1.

__________________
"I may come across as a Pete-hater, but I'm not. I have utmost respect for his abilities" Fed_Rulz 2011

the worst #1?? that is just silly. each player earned it. you show little respect for the game and its history, but since you are new to tennis its not surprising. all of those guys were terrific players. most consider rios best never to win a major not the worst #1. guess you don't realize how difficult it is to attain #1.

Didn't say any #1 doesn't earned it, but if you had to choose which one are weak, these guys made the list according to most fans.

lol..wow, what would you do if youtube and wikipedia did not exist? its a good thing its here so you can read about tennis since you never played it nor watched from that era. its great to hear opinions coming from clueless posters that only know rios existed from wikipedia and youtube videos.

haha
Seriously, some people these days are crazy. My younger brother was like that until I enlightened him. He first started watching tennis when Roddick won the USO, and then Fed dominated, so he was a mindless *******. I've taken him to see some of the recent Sampras Exos, and Now his favorite players are Nadal & Sampras and than Fed at 3l. I love it.

haha
Seriously, some people these days are crazy. My younger brother was like that until I enlightened him. He first started watching tennis when Roddick won the USO, and then Fed dominated, so he was a mindless *******. I've taken him to see some of the recent Sampras Exos, and Now his favorite players are Nadal & Sampras and than Fed at 3l. I love it.

lol..wow, what would you do if youtube and wikipedia did not exist? its a good thing its here so you can read about tennis since you never played it nor watched from that era. its great to hear opinions coming from clueless posters that only know rios existed from wikipedia and youtube videos.

you should try a different form of attack/insult. this a'int workin...

Let me get this straight: you want to argue that an era, where a no-slam wonder became #1 is a strong era?

the worst #1?? that is just silly. each player earned it. you show little respect for the game and its history, but since you are new to tennis its not surprising. all of those guys were terrific players. most consider rios best never to win a major not the worst #1. guess you don't realize how difficult it is to attain #1.

Any player who cant even win a major, even one of the best not to, is a weak #1. If even in womens tennis #1s who never go on to win a slam in history are rare, mens it is even worse. Even if Rios was the best to not win a major he could still easily be the worst #1 as he is the only #1 in history to not have won a major.

Anyway Rios isnt the best to not win a major probably. The guy only made it past the quarterfinals of 1 slam ever and embarassed himself in the final that one time. He was an amazing talent and showed it in non slam events but in slams when it mattered most he was a flop. Great hands, great shots and feet, no heart, no mind, no commitment.

This is a good, persuasive point: how does one tell a weak era from a super-strong era?

If the definition of a weak era is one that has 6-7 mediocre players battling it out for slam titles. If the definition of a super-strong era one has 6-7 great players battling it out for all the slam titles. The only distinction would seem to be the determination that the top players are either mediocre or great. And how does one make this determination that the top players are either mediocre or great?

Most look at the records, and say if player X has more than one slam title, then player X is a great player, but this is very problematic. Because records are entirely a function of the quality of the competition. Perhaps it could work if you have 6-7 players at the top, all of whom have some minimum like 5+ slam titles. I am not sure.

PC1 has proposed looking at the skill-sets of the players at the top. Does player X have a complete skill-set? Can player X hit every shot in the book, and will to beat all comers? Or does player X have only one way of playing and a very limited repertoire (for instance, "a serve and a forehand"), it just happens to be a little better than everyone else's. This seems more plausible and more fruitful.

Eight different players. I believe that is only through hindsight, that we can look back and conclude that this was not a strong era.

I often see posters on this forum comparing strength of competition by looking at the slam counts of the top end of the field in a certain era. You are quite right to note that this means of era evaluation fails to properly account for the fact that the achievements of a group of players in an era is a function of the strength of that era. But to properly take this fact into consideration is, I think impossible as it involves us in an infinite regress of achievement evaluation, where player A's major titles are only worthwhile if he beat another player (B) who had major titles to their name along the way, but of course player B's titles are only worth something if they came at the expense of some further major title winner C...etc.

I think at some point (as pc1 suggests) you need to ground the worth of a player's/era's achievements in the skill sets of the players themselves rather than setting them atop a baseless tower built of countless iterations of the achievements of that player's/era's competition.

As a side note I think your definition of super-strong era, even though it includes the caveat of "greatness", fails on the same grounds as urban's: if one super-skilled player came along and started dominating the other greats the era would all of a sudden become weak, because it fails to satisfy your definition of a strong era - but the addition of a super-strong player to an already strong era cannot fail to make an era even stronger. So I think definitions of this kind probably need to be abandoned as they cannot properly characterise what a strong era is.

A complete skill set helps of course but I also think that players should have some sort of overpowering weapon. A Pancho Gonzalez had arguably the greatest weapon in history in his great serve so he rarely lost serve. He often needed one break to win. He also had a very powerful forehand and excellent volley.

Interesting point.

So what's the difference between Gonzales and Roddick?

No volley?

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In the end, the aggressive all-court player always has the advantage against a power-bashing baseliner.

Gonzalez was a great smooth athlete with great movement, a very good volley and while he didn't have a great backhand, it was good.

Gonzalez had some of the best footwork in history. Arthur Ashe thought the two players with the best footwork he has ever seen was Gonzalez and Rosewall. Ashe said this when Borg, Connors, Nastase and McEnroe were playing.

Also unlike Roddick, Gonzalez was great defensively and had tremendous touch. Roddick, once he is on the defensive seems to always lose the point.

You don't get the record Gonzalez had with just a serve and a forehand.

Gonzalez was a great smooth athlete with great movement, a very good volley and while he didn't have a great backhand, it was good.

Gonzalez had some of the best footwork in history. Arthur Ashe thought the two players with the best footwork he has ever seen was Gonzalez and Rosewall. Ashe said this when Borg, Connors, Nastase and McEnroe were playing.

Also unlike Roddick, Gonzalez was great defensively and had tremendous touch. Roddick, once he is on the defensive seems to always lose the point.

You don't get the record Gonzalez had with just a serve and a forehand.

Yep. Thoughtful analysis. Great points.

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In the end, the aggressive all-court player always has the advantage against a power-bashing baseliner.

Quite right, what pc 1 wrote about Gainzalez. I must say, i only read about him and saw clips of Gonzalez, and coherent videos of his best matches - let alone his pro peak around 1957-59- are not available. But he seemed to be quite solid and clever in defense, not trying too much with his groundies, but placing them there, where the opponent it didn't like. Also his movement and touch was much better than Roddick's. He moved vertically into the split-position like a panther, and could make the smoothest of dropshots. Some of those i saw in lengthy clips of the famous Pasarell match at Wimbledon, in an old Wimbledon video of 1984 about the history of Wimbledon. The match was played in absolute dark, before it was finally halted in the second set. Pancho was fuming. His angry confrontation with the referee Captain Gibson, a tight- upperlip English officer, was something special. Connors and Mac were often mad on he court, but Pancho was really frightening.

by weakest era, do you mean one where a player was completely dominant and there was virtually no competition?

Or by the lack of consistency for top players or should I say no top players?

Or just by the level of play, being absolute garbage?

As for number one: it depends what you mean by 'competition'. If you consider competition to be other players being competitive with the dominant player then I wouldn't necessarily consider your first scenario a weak era because the other players could still be of a very high standard and the dominant player may just be a freak. If, on the other hand, when you say 'no competition' you mean to say there were no players of a particularly high standard up against the dominant player, then in this case I would say we are confronted with a weak era.

For the second scenario: it depends whether the lack of consistency arises because the players are not good enough to be consistent at the top level under any circumstances or whether it is a result of an insanely deep field and a very capable top 10. In the first instance then yes it is a weak era, in the second instance it isn't.

The third scenario you described is the only one that I consider to be a legitimate indicator of era weakness. It's the level of play that matters. The overall trend in results for the top players of an era can usually be accounted for by explanations that assume a weak era or explanations that assume a strong era, which is to say, the results trend doesn't give us an indication one way or the other. The final arbiter of era strength is the level of play.

It occurred to me in my description of Gonzalez that, while they have totally different styles of play, Gonzalez has some things in common with Federer.

First of all they both have excellent serves and forehands. The backhand is weaker for both. Both of them are superb movers with great footwork. Gonzalez's serve is often considered to be the greatest ever so I would give him the edge there. Federer's forehand is considered by many to be the best ever so I would give him the edge there.

Both are super defensive players are of course people have ranked both as the potential GOAT.